April 21 2008 show notes

Monday 21 April '08 show

  • It's the Pennsylvania primary tomorrow.
  • Article: Is Equal Pay Day Still Relevant?
    "Political experts have just begun to analyze why Sen. Hillary Clinton, considered a shoo-in for her party's nomination just a few months ago, lags behind Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries. Surely one factor has been that compared with the fresh-faced Illinois senator, Clinton seems like an anachronism. She may as well be wearing horn-rimmed glasses and bell bottoms as she attempts to rally the sisterhood to join her in the cause of electing the first female president.

    The problem for Clinton is that most women today don't think in terms of gender solidarity. Women take for granted our access to education and job opportunities. The steady march of women into positions of political power reassures most that, regardless of the fate of her candidacy, it's only a matter of time before we have a woman in the Oval Office...

    For example, in addition to taking more time out of the labor force, full-time working women spend less time at their jobs than their male counterparts. According to the Department of Labor, women spend .7 hours a day less in the office than men do. Should it be a surprise that an extra 3.5 hours a week at work result in higher pay?

    "
  • Guest: Carrie Lukas, Vice President for Policy and Economics, Independent Women's Forum. Author, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism". Is Equal Pay Day Still Relevant? IWF's Michelle D. Bernard appears often on TV. Tomorrow is equal pay day. She said men do more dangerous jobs, and to teach daughters to be more aggressive.
  • Bumper Music: Li'l Red Riding Hood, Bowling For Soup.
  • Article: Nader at Ten Percent in Michigan.
  • Article: Poll: Clinton Headed for Keystone State Win.
    "In addition to the 20% of disgruntled Democratic voters defecting to McCain, another 4% would vote for independent Ralph Nader, and 20% were undecided about what they would ultimately do in November...

    Nader's 4% could potentially quadruple, as 17% of Democratic respondents said that if their first choice does not get the Democratic nomination, they may vote for Nader.

    "
  • Some Republicans may vote for Libertarians if they don't like McCain.
  • Dee Dee Myers, Bill Clinton’s former press secretary, was paid less than her male predecessor and successor, according to her book.
  • Bumper Music: It Don't Get Any Better Than This, George Jones.
  • Article: Democratic Race ‘Too Mean,’ Say Swift Boat Veterans Giving Swiftboating a Bad Name, Group Fears.
  • Go direct to Thom's site rather than following links there from Air America, as they are redesigning their web site.
  • Article: Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World.
    "Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

    At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.

    "Where's the rice?" an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. "You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous."

    The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.

    "
  • Bumper Music: Gasoline, from Sheryl Crow.
  • Guest: former Republican Congressman from the 7th District of Georgia Bob Barr. He joined the Libertarian Party in 2006, and has formed an exploratory committee to consider running for president. His debate with John Yoo, audience reaction. It was bizarre. Decriminalizing pot at the federal level. Federal government is way too big. Put power back to the people; at least start by getting it down to state level. There are issues that transcend states. Franklin Roosevelt in his 1936 acceptance speech said, "An old English judge once said: 'Necessitous men are not free men'." If you are hungry, you are not free - he disagrees. General welfare. Constitution. Military. What if they passed a law telling us what to wear? It would be law, but we would vote them out.
  • Bumper Music: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Ennio Morricone.
  • Bumper Music: How Did This Country Get So Bad?, Us the Band.
  • If Thom was a Libertarian he would seriously consider Bob Barr. There's an intellectual purity to Libertarians; Republicans who want to smoke pot and get laid. Ayn rand, "Atlas Shrugged". It ignores two aspects of people and enlightenment - the commons, and community.
  • America is a constitutionally limited representative democratic republic.
  • Quote: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
    Preamble of the Constitution of the United States.
  • Bumper Music: Radio, Hackensaw Boys (video).
  • Quote
    "Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever. But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare? I appeal to the objectors themselves, whether they would in that case have employed the same reasoning in justification of Congress as they now make use of against the convention. How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation!
    Federalist 41, James Madison.
  • Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. She's going to Mississippi, where they are building a public swimming pool at the Pass Christian DeLisle Community Center, since more people would have survived Hurricane Katrina if they had had the chance to learn to swim. The Supreme Court, 10 people asked for halt to their executions by lethal injection. $112m goes to a family who accused Exxon Mobil in 1977 of putting radioactive material on their land since the court decided not to hear the appeal. John McCain despises the US Air Force. He's a navy guy. He is in Alabama on his time for action tour. The administration had Secretary Gates giving a speech at Maxwell AFB in Alabama. He said, "I've been wrestling for months to get more intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets into the theater because people were stuck in old ways of doing business, it's been like pulling teeth. While we've doubled this capability in recent months, it is still not good enough." King Abdullah II of Jordan is visiting Wednesday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Thursday. Secretary Rice said they are stepping up more. Jimmy Carter said that Hamas leaders said they would accept the 1967 border; the State Department says not.
  • Article: Carter Says Hamas May Accept Right of Israel to Exist.
    "Hamas leaders said they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 border and the right of Israel to live as a neighbor, provided the agreement was submitted to the Palestinian people for overall approval".
  • Book: "Loser Take All: Election Fraud and The Subversion of Democracy, 2000 - 2008", Mark Crispin Miller (Editor).
    "Heading into another presidential race, We the People have to face the fact that our election system is a shambles, run by private corporations with a partisan agenda, and largely based on a technology that anyone can rig. This great book will tell you all about it—and, even more important, help us overcome it." Thom Hartmann.
  • Guest: Mark Crispin Miller. Editor, "Loser Take All", "Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)", "The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder", "Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order". Yesterday Thom watched Zimbabwe coverage on BBC. There was outrage that Mugabe had not made the final count public. But it was not made public in Florida either. A media consortium recounted, al Gore won. 2000 was a coup d'etat. The Supreme Court ruled that Bush would be "irreparably harmed". 3 judges should have recused themselves. Barack Obama said in the last debate that Al Gore won. Why was it not a screaming headline? the consortium misrepresented the count, lied, so they are stuck with it. Kerry, Ohio, 2006. There's an essay in "Loser Take All" by Jonathan Simon and Bruce O'Dell, there was fraud, it should have been a rout. We need a high turnout. People have to be ready, don't cave in if it is stolen.
  • Bumper Music: What Do Ya Think About That, Montgomery Gentry.
  • Article: Colombia: no rights, no trade, John Sweeney, president, AFL-CIO.
  • Guest: AFL-CIO Policy Director Thea Lee. Joe Hill. The Wobblies. This sort of thing is no longer taught un American schools. It is still happening in Colombia and elsewhere. John Sweeney's article on Colombia. Stories of deaths and threats. Thom's visit to Bogota. People say it's not just trade unionists who are killed and threatened, so why not agree to free trade?
  • Bumper Music: Gunslinger, John Fogerty.
  • The BGH (bovine growth hormone) case. Food labelling. Organics.
  • Clip: Republican Congressman Reveals Secret GOP Strategy?. On Election Day 2004 Peter King said, "It's already over. The Election's over. We Won." Alex Pelosi (Nancy's daughter) asks, "How do you know that?" King replies, "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting."
  • Book: "The Power Of Partnership: Seven Relationships that Will Change Your Life", Riane Eisler.
  • Book: "The Chalice and the Blade", Riane Eisler.
  • Bumper Music: Say (All I Need), Onerepublic. (video)
  • Article: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand.
    "Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants."
  • Thom:
    In this article in yesterday's New York Times, and you've got to read this, "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand", they talk about how even in the run up to the war, 2002, that there were a lot of these retired officers who were looking at the evidence and going, "this is nonsense, but we're not saying that on the air" because their economic interests were at stake; their careers, their future careers. The money that they were going to add to their military pension was at stake. This is, this is beyond criminal. This is beyond immoral. This is a spitting in the eye, a slap in the face of democracy itself. These men who are being held up as patriots and heroes, it turns out are liars and cheats, are turning their backs on democracy itself, are selling us out for a mess of pottage. They are absolutely, I lack metaphors that I can say on the radio. What they are doing to this country. What they have done to this country over the last 7 years. And the networks who are complicit with it and going along with it. It is just so very wrong.
  • Why weren't the 5 Supreme Court justices who gave Bush the election fired? They could be impeached, but it needs 2/3 of the Senate. Where are the constitutional lawyers? Marjorie Cohn, expert on constitutional law. Corporate media won't go for it.
  • October surprise.

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